Free Range
by likeiloveyouforpussies
Summary: Nonlinear, episodic snapshots about Piper and Alex's time at Litchfield.
1. Insane

A week had passed since it had first happened, and she still hadn't been able to decide whether she had actually lost her mind or if this was a way of preventing precisely that. She had certainly lost it when they'd locked her up in that windowless, hermetic cell - that prison within a prison. She had really believed that they had tossed away the key, that the earth would swallow her, and that the world would sooner or later forget about her. The fact that one could simply do such a thing, on a whim, without justification, had been the final straw on a rather long list of powerless situations, and she had snapped. Because what was the difference, really, between putting one's head down, doing one's best to follow every single rule in the book as well as all the additional unofficial ones, and getting away with doing whatever the hell one wanted, if the results could be equally random?

When she gave her mind free range to think about it, all she got was a twisted combination of facts one could turn into reasons: she'd had every scrap of control stolen from her; she'd been entirely isolated, with the exception of a perhaps imaginary neighbor, which wasn't at all reassuring; there was the matter of the consequences to one's actions being arbitrary - not even repenting made a difference; and finally, the desperation of needing to feel something close to alive. It hadn't taken her long to feel like she was fading away. When they'd released her from her confinement, there had been nothing remotely corporal about her. She'd felt dissolved, like a mist, with the fear of evaporating in thin air, understanding that one's greatest danger in such a place was to lose oneself, that everybody was fighting for their sense of self with themselves - as well as with countless others who were battling for the same thing. And that was very hard, since prison was a realm devoid of context, the opposite of the outside world. She guessed that that was why lots of those women appeared to be so extreme - were they just intense versions of themselves? Could that be a somewhat unconscious strategy?

What she knew for sure was that living without a context was turning out to be particularly difficult for her. She had started to realize how badly she needed one, how lost she felt without that safety net, and how much worse it would be without her people's visits. If her sense of normalcy depended on a life she had chosen for herself, how could she remain serene without it? How was she supposed to not start bouncing off corners?

That dissolving sensation had only intensified as she'd re-entered the prison building after being released from the SHU. It reinforced the idea that everything was arbitrary, and showed her that life, as it were, had continued as usual without her. And then everything that she'd been trying to balance between her hands since God knew when, had just collapsed and shattered like an internal, gigantic pile of plates.

* * *

Piper started walking faster down the corridor, in a determined, unstoppable way, both deaf and blind to everything and everyone around her. She was greeted by Nichols upon entering the block, but that had barely registered, not with her mind in such a disengaged state. She walked directly to Alex's bunk, ignored the woman's proclamations of joy, and told her "Let's get out of here" with a tone which called no bullshit because it came straight from within, unfiltered. Grasping the woman's hand to make sure that she'd been walking with her and to avoid having to deliver any explanation whatsoever, Piper led a somewhat worried and quite confused Alex to one of the very few places in Litchfield where one wasn't under the millimetric supervision of everyone's prying eyes and the guards' constant scolding.

Everybody knew about the chapel, there was a common, unspoken understanding about it, and if she had found somebody else already there, she wouldn't have had any qualms about running them off, such was the state she was in. Her mind, if it was at all functional, was completely focused and totally unreachable by tiny details like Alex's questions. It was all white noise to her anyway, because wasn't just that she wished to feel something real, but there was also the pressing necessity of feeling real herself.

The brunette hadn't yet understood, as proven by her uncertain smile and her questioning of what they were doing there. But Piper was dead serious, and God knew what she looked like, because she made Alex's smile fade without having to utter a damn word. In that moment, Alex seemed to understand, and looked deep into her eyes, answering a wordless question, or solving a lingering doubt, and Piper required no further encouragement. She lunged forward, seized the woman's head between her hands, and pulled her close. Alex echoed the gesture, cradling her head while their mouths crashed together, messily breaking through the years, bursting across the guilt, the things unsaid, and every single kind of distance. Their bodies collided into a feverish whirlwind of hair and want, both equally desperate to feel more, their hands stubbornly striving to take each other's shirts off at the same time.

The fact that Piper didn't want to break the kiss was only making matters more complicated technically, but she didn't care. All that mattered was that she had found a long lost sensation of abandon, a floating sensation in the mouth of her stomach, a flood of desire rushing through her veins.

They lost their footing sometime during their aggressive tug-o-war with their clothes, collapsing on the wooden floor with a couple of dull thuds. Alex raised her head to check up on her, but Piper hadn't felt a thing; she was too focused on crawling over the woman's body. She climbed the mountains of Alex's curves, dragging her lips and tongue over her skin, with all her senses sharp as knives, updating the maps that were still stored somewhere inside her brain. She swallowed the taste of Alex like a returning addict and buried her nose between her breasts, breathing in the recognizable scent she had merely sampled when she had furtively smelled her pillow. Now it intoxicated her, as she pushed away Alex's bra and dove into her breasts, making the woman under her gasp and squirm.

The blonde needed more, however, and, incapable as she was of wasting any time with subtleties, she pulled down Alex's pants and underwear just enough to give her hand easy access. However, she had to pause as soon as her fingertips pressed on the woman's damp lips; for a moment, all she could do was grunt against Alex's neck. She was amazed by how well she remembered that body, how good it felt, and how it awakened her own body. When she tilted her head upwards to look into Alex's gleaming eyes, the brunette cupped her face and kissed her, sucking and biting on her lower lip like she used to do whenever she wished to drive her insane.

But Piper already felt insane. She was fighting to control just one goddamn thing in her life, so she shoved her tongue into Alex's mouth and sunk her fingers between the woman's folds, overpowering her. It stunned her how hot her center was, how welcoming, her fingers becoming instantly coated with a layer of slick wetness.

Using her own thigh to push her fingers inside the woman, Piper then reached for Alex's hand and guided it under the hem of her pants, unceremoniously shoving it between her own legs and being very obvious about what she desired. The blonde acknowledged that she too was very wet, judging by the ease with which Alex's fingers were moving against her, and how badly she wanted them inside her. With their moans blending halfway between their joined mouths, she then allowed herself to get lost in the sensations brought on by that pure pleasure, with the instinctual bucking of her hips freely dictating the duration and depth of the contact.

Her free hand closed around a bunch of black hair, eliminating her support and causing her to collapse on top of the woman with her entire weight. She suddenly became more aware of the brunette's fluid movements underneath her, and so increased her speed, eliciting an immediate response in the form of a muffled cry. The brunette broke the kiss roughly, bringing a hand up to her hair much like Piper had done and muttering several incoherencies, of which the only comprehensible word was "fucking". Piper gathered that the woman didn't want her to stop, and she really had no intention of doing such a thing, not yet. Finding Alex's lips with her own again, she felt her body starting to grow faint, dangerously light, as she began to escalate the steep curve she used to know so well, slowly at first, but then urgently, eager to get to its ridge and make the instant last for an eternity.

Feeling like she was about to burst over the brunette like a water balloon, Piper released Alex's hair and grasped her hand tightly, entwining their fingers. It seemed to be precisely what the woman needed at that exact moment, for she came abruptly, shaking frantically and whimpering into her mouth. And the bare expression of Alex's release seemed to be just what Piper needed, because she came barely seconds later, and came hard, ripped in half by a lightning-shaped current.

The brunette surrounded her waist with one arm, while the other stroked her cheek, her temple, combing a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Piper remained motionless, with her eyes firmly shut and her breath still ragged, counting down from ten while pretending that they didn't need to move sooner rather than later, that Alex could indeed hold her perpetually. Overcome as she was by the crisscrossing currents of the past and the present, she felt as if she was floating in limbo; they had indeed managed to get out of prison for a short while.

"We should go," Alex said, placing her finger under Piper's chin and kissing her gently.

Nodding, the blonde sat up and then stood shakily, trying to rearrange her clothes with unresponsive hands. Her eyes were cloudy, as if everything was surrounded by fog, and she realized that she hadn't yet come down completely from that mind-blowing high.


	2. The Silent Treatment

With her eyes fixed on the screen and pretending to be enthralled by the shitty program, the dark-haired woman waited. She didn't usually roam that specific area of the prison, since she certainly wasn't there to socialize and couldn't feel more indifferent about TV in general; however, she had observed that Piper did pop in on occasion to chat or play Scrabble, so that was reason enough to linger there. It wasn't like Alex didn't have plenty of time to waste; in fact, that was all she possessed now - too much of it.

She had been the kind of inmate who had tried to mind her own business instead of forming bonds and making friends or allies, sticking to her books and her bunk… until Piper's arrival. That had changed everything. Alex had immediately spotted the yellow signal of her hair across the cafeteria even before the striking orange scrubs, so noticeable among a bleak ocean of mostly beige and grey, but she had kept her distance while she gathered her guts. Not being able to face Piper without some preparation had irritated her, as well as the fact that she had been motivated to approach the blonde when it looked like she'd been at the brink of having a nervous breakdown. Because despite what Piper had done to her in the past, Alex couldn't bear to see her suffer, meaning that she still made her weak after such a long time. And yet the blonde's reaction upon finding out that they had ended up in the same prison had been less than enthusiastic, and she had been playing the role of the offended party, which was utter bullshit.

Simply put, she'd wanted Piper to see her, and she had been running into her deliberately now and then, because she knew how her mind worked, and that she would try to pretend that Alex wasn't even there. More bullshit. One didn't even need to take into account Piper's quasi-panic attack after Alex had first tried to greet her to tell that she still had some kind of effect over her. It was plain as day to anyone who cared to use their eyes -as proven by Nichols's blatant interrogation-, although, truth be told, what else was there to do in prison besides staring at one another and judging thy neighbor?

The brunette had given up on direct communication after the pie-throwing incident, because fuck her and her slobbering, basket case, self-appointed bodyguard of a prison wife. And fuck her even more for playing the role of the offended party, like she had been forced to do all those things. Alex certainly wasn't there to be shat on, so she had defended herself tooth and nail during their encounter in the bathroom, saying what needed to be said, which incidentally didn't include the truth about having landed her in prison. Confessing wouldn't have helped Alex's case at all, but she had been sincere in every other respect, and it had been the first time they had really spoken inside that horrid hellhole. If she had to be completely honest -the three A.M., slightly drunk, lying in bed awake, draped in complete darkness kind of honest-, Alex had to admit that she'd wanted Piper to like her again, something radically incompatible with the knowledge that she had ratted her out in exchange for less prison time.

For a minute there in that bathroom, she'd believed that the blonde would just go on ignoring her snarky remarks as before. That was why she had informed her of her bathroom schedule and why she'd let her eyes roam Piper's naked legs shamelessly - the latter with the mission of making her as uncomfortable as possible. Surprisingly, the girl had openly confronted her, blaming her for everything and once again mentioning the perfect little life she was missing because of her. It had been a double-faced offense for Alex since, on the one hand, Piper was telling her that she had been doing more than okay without her (although Alex was convinced that it was nothing but a safe front) and, on the other hand, she was trampling on their past relationship when she had been the one to leave.

Her fingers curled into a fist - the only outward indication of the tension within. No one in that damn prison could've judged her as anything but a tough yet laid-back woman watching TV. She was perfectly capable of spending her entire sentence without ever freaking out or losing her shit, with or without antidepressants, but knowing that Piper was around made her nervous. As ridiculous as it was, it was also unavoidable, just like purposely running into her to remind the girl of her presence and that she wasn't going anywhere.

Sure enough, Piper entered the room several minutes later, just when the TV program had started listing what they'd considered to be the best beaches in the world. Well, fuck that. Alex could compile a much better collection out of the ones they'd visited all those years ago.

A single glance sufficed for her to see that the blonde was wearing that wide-eyed, frank expression of hers. So the prison hadn't yet consumed it completely, Alex noted, returning her attention to the screen. She listened to her talking to Morello and two of the kitchen workers -the midget and the mute one- about spotting a chicken in the yard while she was reading and having her coffee, which was… weird as fuck. Unable to help herself, Alex turned her head once more to look at the blonde, wondering if the girl was starting to lose it, despite her obvious attempts to keep her mind in a Zen-like state. However, judging by the other women's instantaneous and frenzied reaction, urging Piper to go tell Red, that shit had to be real.

Even so, Alex made a mental note to check up on Piper a bit more often, because it had already been established that the blonde hadn't lost her innate ability to get herself into trouble. It would only make the blonde rebuff her further, but it couldn't be helped. She still was the only person that Alex knew in that stupid fucking place, but that wasn't the real reason. Having learned a long time ago that all she had and all she could count on was herself, the brunette knew that she shouldn't fabricate comforting lies to reassure her mind and justify her actions - something which, incidentally, Piper did all the time. It was what it was. In this case, the truth being that Piper's presence affected her and made her want to hover around her, because she had become real once again, solid, and not just a diffused entity in her brain. And so, Alex concluded wryly, it seemed that she couldn't let high school be high school.

* * *

Oh this was priceless, Piper telling her that there were no hard feelings. Alex kept folding stuff as the blonde spewed out her load of crap. And yet, even after all the rejection she had been receiving, she found it hard to keep a straight face and not smile at Piper's peculiar notion of an apology. No, that wasn't even an apology, but an attempt at smoking the proverbial peace pipe, when Alex had done nothing warlike in nature. She certainly would have, though, if she hadn't been the one to name Piper, but that was something she couldn't change, and wouldn't have changed it either, to tell the truth. Because they were now confined in the same shared space, and having Piper there was of course better than not having her, even in her previous state of animosity, because Alex was positive that the mutual spark between them had survived the years and the heartbreak. It was still there. Piper was only capable of suppressing it because she had something that the brunette lacked -a great dose of justified anger-, and was surely holding on to it for dear life, lest she let her barriers down.

Luckily, the girl was too busy looking down while explaining herself to see that Alex was grinning. By the time Piper dared to look her in the eye, expecting some kind of response, her features had gone back to being stern. But fuck that, and fuck her offer of being friends, which definitely stung more than it should. Alex didn't know what had motivated the blonde to climb down her precious high horse, but she had spent those several weeks treating her like a fucking leper and only recently trying to engage her in an eager, almost pathetic way, so Alex wasn't about to absolve her of the silent treatment right away, if only because _she _wanted to be the one to say when.


	3. Adaptation

The important thing was to keep things simple, like Larry had advised her, and do her time with her head set on what was waiting for her outside, her goals, instead of being absorbed by the soap opera of insanity that was perpetually going on behind those walls. But it was difficult for her not to get involved in her surroundings, and besides, how else was she supposed to adapt? Of course, Larry would answer that she didn't _need_ to adapt, which would only confirm that he knew nothing about prison. Adaptation was everything; it meant survival.

Her brain was incapable of working in a straight line anyway, however hard she tried to make it submit to her will, so she was doing the best she could with what she had. She often envisioned her mind as a TV set transmitting a myriad of channels on a loop, and all she could do was flick through them with an imaginary remote control -thought after thought, voice after voice, face after face-, quickly discarding ones, lingering on others, but feeling no different than a powerless hamster on a wheel, because they would all come back sooner or later. Unavoidably, plenty of those ever-returning thoughts had to do with a certain dark-haired woman, and not just because they were now seeing each other more often -since the brunette had struck up a kind of friendship with Nichols and Morello-, but mainly because of the recent knowledge that Alex hadn't been the one to name her - meaning that _she_ was the asshole, not Alex. Consequently, Piper found that she couldn't reach out for her angry safeguard anymore; the barrier of resentment strategically placed between them had dissolved, and that was a problem.

Without having to remind herself of how much she despised Alex, her eyes now considered themselves licensed to do more than give the brunette a passing glance. However, she was impaired by how much of a jerk she felt. Her attempts at approaching Alex had been calamitous at best, and she had actually started to wonder if the silent spell would ever end.

It seemed like business as usual when she and Nichols went down to the laundry room with the intention of fixing one of the dryers (they were always breaking down from overuse, the old things). Alex was there, folding and stacking a bunch of clean sheets, and she and Nichols started teasing each other from the get-go, like it came completely natural to them, while Piper remained on the sidelines without opening her mouth - not that she would've dared to anyway, since Nichols's banter had turned very sexually aggressive very soon, however playful it intended to be. Clutching the instruction manuals against her chest and feeling schoolgirly and deeply uncomfortable, the blonde wished for the ground to open up beneath her feet and swallow her whole. Both Nichols's abruptness and Alex's easiness at responding could only mean that they had been spending time together, maybe more than she had imagined, and whatever that coziness meant, it only enhanced their own alienation and silence.

Whether due to a miracle or because Nichols had gone too far with her porno pantomime, Alex cut her off, directing their attention towards the broken machine, for which Piper was grateful. It turned out that she had given her thanks too soon, though, since Norma chose that moment to appear and take Nichols away, having been summoned by the all-powerful Red.

"Come on!" Nichols spat out at the mute woman as they left the laundry room, urging her on.

The blonde fidgeted with the utility belt, which Nichols had handed her before leaving. Being left alone with Alex was hardly an improvement. It meant not having to listen to their dirty jokes, but it would also entail more of that silent hostility she had been receiving lately. Great. She just needed to concentrate on the job, shut off everything, and do her best to ignore… Wait a second. As she snapped shut the heavy, tool-sprouted belt, she noticed that Alex was suddenly closer -very close, actually-, and her expression… there was something different about it. It was still playful, of course, because this was Alex and there _had_ to be some teasing involved, but there was also a glint in her eyes, a stupid smile on her lips, and no bitterness whatsoever.

Piper just looked at her, because what else could she do, having retracted into herself for her own protection and now encountering this… this Alex, who was gazing at her so bluntly. What was going on?

"You don't look half bad in those," the brunette said, without losing eye contact.

She almost smiled back, almost, because she felt the jolt that came with surprise at the unexpected proximity and half-compliment, coupled with the warmth of familiarity. Yes, she had seen that face before, years ago, and heard that tone, linking them to many times in which Alex had both wished to ogle at her and make her flush. But that was then and this was now, and the brunette was enjoying this way too much, judging from her widening smile.

"Thanks," Piper said, grabbing the instruction manuals hurriedly and spinning around to look for the busted dryer and hide her stupid giddiness.

"You sure you know what you're doing?" Alex called after her, because she couldn't stop, could she? And yet Piper wondered if it was a fitting question after all, before shaking her head and pushing the thought away.

* * *

Snapping out of her sleepwalker state, the blonde entered the laundry room, carrying the obese, net-like bag full of clothes. Alex was miraculously alone, sorting through a bunch of tangled sheets. She had rolled up the short sleeves of her white t-shirt in a clear effort to combat the inherent heat of her workplace, although there was little one could do against those monstrous, vapor-breathing machines.

"Hey," Piper said gently, so as not to startle her.

The dark-haired woman turned around, wearing her own version of that look of detached displeasure which every inmate seemed to have rehearsed to perfection. However, her expression changed upon recognizing who it was. Piper identified the warmth of old, as well as the devilish smile, forming a combination which -if one wished to be simplistic- could be Alex in a nutshell: tenderness and mischief rolled into one.

And Piper couldn't deny that she liked simple - perhaps now more than ever. Part of her knew that having slept with Alex could only complicate her life even more, but whenever that nagging thought appeared, she changed the channel at once, because the thing which had the potential of compromising her future was precisely what was simplifying her present and getting her through the day. So she'd managed to make her brain stop at that; whenever it attempted to take the thought further, Piper merely changed the channel again. And it was easy, sometimes shockingly so, because in prison the future was just like the imaginary pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and moving towards it was like standing on an eternal conveyor belt with the same background images on repeat . It didn't feel like moving at all.

"Hey yourself," Alex called back, immediately dropping what she had between her hands and walking around the table to meet her. "I see you've come bearing gifts."

The blonde glanced at her dirty laundry and shrugged, but Alex apparently meant something else, for she snatched her wrist and pushed her against the metal fence which separated them from the dryers.

"Wait, what if…?" Piper began, dropping her bag and grasping on to Alex's t-shirt for balance. What if someone saw them? What if they got caught? With the other woman's taller body completely blocking her view, those were valid questions, surely. There was also the fence, which was starting to dig into her back, and yet the most baffling thing of all was Alex herself - having Alex pressed against her, with one hand cupping her cheek and the other roaming her body over her clothes.

"Alex," she hissed, once more trying to warn the woman.

"I know," said the brunette, quickly glancing over both her shoulders before bowing her head and capturing Piper's lips into a wet, searing kiss.

As her fingers closed around Alex's black hair, every thought and worry in her mind dissolved. She was only aware of their mouths opening up to each other and closing around each other, and Alex's tongue searching for hers in the heat. It ended too soon, however, with a tiny, lingering peck.

"We'll have to think of something, huh?" the brunette asked, raising one eyebrow.

With every cell in her body awakened, the only answer she could offer at the moment was a nod. Feeling dizzy, Piper picked her laundry bag from the floor, set it on the table, and turned to leave. She could sense Alex's stare and self-satisfied smile on the back of her neck as she walked away, with her knees shaking and very aware of the growing wetness between her legs.


	4. Like Christmas

The cardboard box had already been opened and examined by the guards, of course, as they invariably did with every single piece of mail, but fuck it, receiving it had felt like Christmas anyway. She dipped her hand into the box, pulled out the last volume, and smelled its pages before putting it with the other arrivals. At least there was that to look forward to, the regular flow of new books. It had been a very long time since she'd needed to use literature for escapism instead of a distraction or just for aesthetic pleasure, but it was reassuring to confirm that the printed word could still do its thing.

The illusion of inner peace was a delicate thing, she guessed, like trying to keep a bubble from popping, but it was essential to have one, or how else was she supposed to survive this place? Forget counseling and antidepressants -shit designed to dumb her down and keep her meek, nodding and dozing through her sentence-; she was used to the rush of life, but the rush of fiction would have to do for the moment.

There was also the rush of Piper, sure, but that was different. Always irritatingly different, Alex mused, as she went to chuck the empty cardboard box. There was yet so much to be determined in that respect that "the Piper Question" was an untouchable subject. Nichols had tried to make her talk about it a couple of times, but Alex had only responded with vagueness, both because she didn't wish to share that part of herself, and because she felt like she couldn't. It had been buried in the deepest, most recondite corner of her heart, and it still managed to make her entire body ache sometimes. So now that they were on speaking terms after the dryer incident (at least something good had come out of that fucking meth head's prank, although she wasn't going to forget what that fucking residue of a human being had done), she wasn't planning on crushing the single thing she had going on for her. For starters, it had been tricky enough to get the blonde to treat her like a fucking human being all over again, and she didn't want to lose that, even if they weren't neither here nor there, essentially dancing around each other.

While she returned to her bunk, she noted that the stiffness she'd been feeling on her back all day had increased and spread to her shoulders and her arms. What was up with that? It couldn't be just because she'd been sitting inside a great, big fucking dryer for a considerable amount of time, could it? This was something else, she concluded, as she felt her eyes beginning to haze and her nose getting itchy.

"Oh fuck," she muttered between her teeth, realizing that the flu bug had got her after all.

* * *

They had agreed that it needed to be just before the breakfast rush hour, when everyone was on the verge of being at their busiest and radiating from their cubes to the showers, to the cafeteria. No one would miss them if they disappeared for a short while, and they'd be eating breakfast before anyone noticed. There'd been no need for convincing, since Piper had already demonstrated her hunger eloquently enough by pulling her into that chapel.

For a moment, Alex had been really concerned about her. She'd recalled when they'd released Watson from the SHU, how she and Nichols had spotted her relishing her first moments outside, arms spread out and head thrown back. Although Nichols had automatically judged it as an overreaction, Alex hadn't forgotten that image when they'd thrown Piper into the SHU. And the blonde's face upon being released had been an otherwise blank mask of weird determination, which had finally exploded -to Alex's relief- into something she was able to understand. It had been cooking slowly for weeks, really, whether Piper wanted to admit it or not, although she wouldn't have bet on it happening that way, getting fucked by Piper in a whirlwind of lust.

As she navigated towards their meeting place, Alex reflected on the fact that Piper had already concocted an excuse for doing this as a regular thing before even engaging in it, which was just her way of dealing -not dealing- with stuff; or, if the justification didn't come before the action, it would simply be fabricated later - no biggie. Something like: life in prison was unbearable, they needed comfort, they needed human contact, yada yada yada, whatever. Alex rolled her eyes, because here she was again, with her mind reluctantly returning to its default position of attempting to disentangle Piper's threads, and she couldn't help it.

The brunette checked her surroundings before quickly entering the utility closet and closing the door behind her. It was but a tiny, dimly-lit room which smelled of cleaning products, and yet it became her favorite place in the world as soon as the door opened and in came Piper.

"Hey."

"Alex?"

"Well… yeah. Who else, the faun from fucking Narnia?" she shook her head and laughed quietly.

"I don't know! I don't know how this is supposed to work. What if we need to, you know, grab a number?"

Even in the semi-darkness, Alex noticed that the blonde was gesturing wildly, and was sorry for her agitation, although it was understandable; she was feeling stupidly giddy herself, but there was always something they could do with that output of energy, she mused, taking off her glasses.

"Pipes?"

"What?"

"Shut up."

She reached around the blonde's shoulders and pulled her close, finding her lips and seamlessly melting into them. Wasn't it funny, how effortlessly one could get used to something and immediately start needing it, as if one had any right to feel entitled? Even without expectations -because expectations were a thing of the future, and the future was nowhere in sight-, it was dead easy to fall back into decade-old habits. And being cerebral could be easy enough in other circumstances, but not now. Now, her brain was just a horny, thawing pile of mush, and Alex was only thankful for the sensation.

Her hand slipped under Piper's jumper and moved up the soft skin of her back. It was a shame that time was of the essence, but hey, she was not complaining. Gently pushing the blonde into the corner to move away from the door's translucent glass, Alex then hooked her fingers under the hem of Piper's pants and pulled them down, taking her underwear with them and kneeling down before her. She kissed down the woman's stomach, swiftly fidgeting with her shoelaces so that she could take off one of her boots and ease her out of the left leg of her pants.

With her arms splayed against the wall for support, Piper raised her free leg and rested it on Alex's shoulder, and the brunette delivered a single kiss on the inside of her thigh before giving her center a long, slow lick with the flat of her tongue. She felt a grunt of surprise catch in her throat as the familiarity of the woman's taste stunned her, but that didn't last more than a second, for it ignited a desire for more. Her mouth closed around Piper's lips, sucking on them while her tongue dipped between them easily, smoothly drawing circles around her clit, getting coated in the blonde's own wetness.

"Oh God," Piper whispered, starting to shiver from head to toe and unknowingly making Alex smile, because it had always been one of her favorite things, making Piper's agnostic ass automatically religious with a single, simple touch.

She wished to tell Piper how fucking amazing she felt, but knew that any loss of contact would make the blonde furious, so she contented herself with moaning against her clit, working it faster, making her back arch away from the wall, and making every single nerve so tense and ready for release that Alex herself almost came by association. She glanced up at the writhing woman, noting that the only reason why she couldn't hear her screaming was because she'd been sensible enough to cover her mouth with both hands.

With a muffled groan, Piper bucked her hips one last time, losing her balance and unintentionally knocking down a mop.

"Shit!" Alex hissed, managing to catch before it hit the ground. "That was close."

Alex felt Piper's fingers closing around her hair, pulling at it gently to make her lift her head. The blonde was looking at her with what Alex guessed were bedroom eyes, which made her raise her eyebrows. She was about to get up from the floor when Piper knelt down, half-straddling her. What the…? Alex's surprised giggle was cut short by Piper's lips, kissing her with a startling surge of desire. However, someone had to be the voice of reason here, as bothersome as that was.

"Pipes, wait, I don't think there's time…"

"We'll make time."

The seriousness in her voice made her shut up at once. She realized that they had stolen back a bit of their own time, stolen it from those who had confiscated it and who wanted them to just vegetate and do nothing with it. As Piper kissed her again, she understood that they were managing to get away with it, transforming little bits of dull, shapeless time into life, into brightness, into actual feeling.


End file.
